Sunday, March 25, 2018

No, Illegal Immigrants Do Not Share The Plight Of Holocaust Victims

To speak as though the plight of even the most sympathetic illegal immigrants is analogous to the plight of Jews during the Holocaust is simply egregious.

It’s easy to sympathize with the families of illegal immigrants. They are caught in a terrible bind that often places children who are American citizens in a position where their parents who came here illegally face deportation. Their tears are genuine as they face the prospect of either being forced to move to countries where they’ve never lived or being separated from loved ones. The families and individuals in this predicament who choose to evade the law live in fear of discovery.

Such situations are very sad. But are those caught in such dilemmas the moral equivalent of Holocaust victims in hiding from the Nazis? Are the agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement no different from the Gestapo or others who cooperated with the Hitler regime? Does a knock on the door from ICE the same thing as being sent to a certain awful death at Auschwitz merely for the crime of being Jewish?

That’s the argument being made by religious congregations that are seeking to provide sanctuary for illegals who are eligible for deportation. This effort, which was highlighted by a dramatic CNN news feature aired last week, depicts those involved as victims of a heartless state that deserves to be resisted, not least because it is headed by a president they despise. Those who seek to provide sanctuary think of themselves as not merely engaging in a political protest, but as the moral equivalent of righteous gentiles who sought to hide Jews from the Hitler regime.

In doing so they aren’t merely demonstrating a lack of respect for the rule of law, they’re also insulting the memory of the actual Holocaust. This goes beyond the sort of ordinary virtue signaling on the order of those who put “Hate has no home here” signs on their lawns. It is brazen law breaking justified by a dramatic self-regard in which those involved imagine themselves taking part in a dramatic rebellion against tyranny.